Experimental Ebola vaccines could be ready next year: WHO

PanARMENIAN.Net - Experimental vaccines to treat Ebola could be ready for use in African countries badly hit by the deadly virus early next year, the World Health Organization said Friday, Sept 26, according to AFP.

WHO is focusing on two vaccines, one made by British company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and the other by U.S. group NewLink Genetics, and is working with both companies to accelerate clinical trials, WHO assistant director general Marie-Paule Kieny told reporters in Geneva.

Some clinical trials of the GSK vaccine have begun in the United States and Britain, and other trials are expected to begin in Mali next week.

Trials of the NewLink vaccine are also set to start "imminently" in the United States, and others are planned in other countries, including Germany.

"If everything goes well, we may be able to begin using some of these vaccines in some of the affected countries at the very beginning of next year," Kieny said.

Currently, there is no licensed treatment or vaccine against the virus that has killed nearly 3,000 people in West Africa.

The experimental drugs have already been given to a few infected health workers, but stocks are extremely limited and clinical tests to evaluate their effectiveness are not complete.